but you have to do the dance when you say it or it's just not as good

fic: celestial mechanics (23/?) (Reply)

Title: Celestial MechanicsChapter: 23 of undetermined numberFandom: Kpop: InfiniteCharacters/Pairings: Hoya/Myungsoo, Hoya/Sungjong and Myungsoo/Sungyeol bffery, OT7Rating: RWarnings: A/B/O verse, so: dubcon (for both parties) and all that’s associated with the omegaverseSummary:It was as close to perfect as a plan could be. Which is to say: not quite. Myungsoo had plans and Howon had a dream, but the future is never that simple, no matter how certain it had seemed.

The door closes with a click and a heaviness that’s unique to hotel rooms, shutting them into a small world of their own. The room is cool and quiet and it seems like the perfect place to have a serious discussion—except that it’s almost too much, too solemn, an atmosphere close to suffocating. Myungsoo is sitting on the end of the bed, hands between his knees, and Howon has to smile when he remembers that Myungsoo had insisted on making it before they left this morning, no matter what Howon said about housekeeping. That seems like a very long time ago now. The room is so quiet.

Myungsoo’s laptop is sitting open on his desk, and Howon walks over to it, dragging his fingers across the touchpad and making it whir back to life. He opens up itunes and scrolls through it—there’s a bunch of Howon’s hiphop and some of Sungjong’s girl group dances and some of Woohyun’s Stevie Wonder and Sungyeol’s Michael Jackson; unlike most of their group, Myungsoo doesn’t have specifically defined tastes in music, listening to a mishmash of genres, mostly things he’s been introduced to by their friends. Howon finds Nell’s entire discography—Sunggyu-hyung would be proud—and pulls it up, clicking on the first track of Separation Anxiety and relaxing a bit as music seeps into the room. It isn’t the type of thing Howon usually chooses to listen to—even when he wants something more relaxing than his usual upbeat hip-hop, he typically goes for the production-heavy smoothness of R&B—but it’s unobtrusive enough not to hinder conversation even as it dissolves the sober air hanging in the room. Throwing open the heavy drapes and letting sunlight stream in helps, too.

Howon turns back to Myungsoo and finds his mate’s gaze waiting for him. Howon looks back at those dark eyes and tries to sort out everything that’s going on in his mind. So much has happened since they left this room hours ago, and he’s not sure of where to start. It’s so much.

“What did Dongwoo-hyung say?”

The suddenness of the question catches Howon off-guard. He blinks. “What?”

“Dongwoo-hyung,” Myungsoo repeats. “On the phone. He wanted you to call him all weekend and you looked strange after you talked to him and you said you’d tell me afterwards.”

Okay. If that’s where Myungsoo wants to start. Howon kicks off his shoes—Myungsoo’s already removed his—and sits down on the bed, back against the pillowed headboard, and motions for Myungsoo to join him. Myungsoo’s shoulder and side press against his as they settle into place, just like all those days right after the mating that they sat side-by-side against the tree while they ate lunch, and that’s why Howon had chosen to sit like this: they’re used to this position and it gives Myungsoo the stabilizing skinship he needs without the touching being so intimate that it’s a distraction or so *overwhelming that Howon feels confined. The downside is that they aren’t face-to-face, but honestly that might make it easier to have this conversation.

“What Dongwoo-hyung said,” Howon murmurs, and his lips quirk in amusement; Myungsoo had no doubt asked because he was hoping they could talk about something lighter before they get into a real conversation about their future. But the talk with Dongwoo was even heavier than that.

“You said he’s okay?” A hint of worry has crept back into Myungsoo’s voice.

“Everybody back home is fine.” Howon hesitates, and he can feel Myungsoo shift beside him. He can be an impatient kid, but he holds his tongue, waiting for Howon to volunteer more. “He had something about the mating bond he wanted to tell me.”

Myungsoo’s eyebrows dip. “And it couldn’t wait till we got home?”

Howon snorts. “I think it was killing him and Sungjong, the thought of me not knowing.”

“What was it?”

It would probably be best just to face this bluntly, and that’s usually Howon’s preference anyway. But this is so big, he wants to ease into a bit. It’s not that he’s worried about how Myungsoo will react—they’re mated, they’re forever, so at the very worst Myungsoo will feel guilty about not returning his feelings if he doesn’t feel the same way, and Howon can live with that. It’s not like he’s going to be confess and be rejected or something. But still. They’re mated, they’re forever, and he wants Myungsoo to understand how he reached this point, how sure he is now. Somehow it seems important.

“Remember at the beginning, when we felt almost sick when we weren’t together and then when we saw each other, it just felt right?”

Myungsoo nods; there’s a trace of confusion on his face, but he seems willing to follow Howon wherever this is going.

“And there was the crying and me nearly killing Bang Minsoo, and the one thing I really understood was that I was feeling a shitload of stuff that wasn’t really me, that was my hormones—and you were, too.”

Myungsoo’s eyes seem to see everything inside of Howon. “I hated it because I was embarrassed. Because I felt like it was annoying. Because I was worried you’d hurt someone even if you didn’t want to.” He licks his lips, the nervous gesture familiar. “But you hated it because it wasn’t you, didn’t you?”

It shouldn’t surprise him, the way Myungsoo understands him—they’ve had time to reach this place, and it makes sense. But he had thought that Myungsoo was so tangled up in his own misery and confusion at the beginning that he wouldn’t really have the time to think through why Howon disliked their situation, too. A wave of warmth breaks over Howon, and it reminds him of that rightness he would feel when he saw or touched Myungsoo back then. Except this time he knows it’s all him. “I don’t like being out of control,” Howon confirms. “I like knowing what I’m doing or feeling is because of the choices I made. I didn’t resent you, not ever. But I resented the bond, and the way it made me feel and how I couldn’t control myself. A lot.”

“I know,” Myungsoo says simply, and the bond really has settled: at the beginning, insecurity had flared inside Myungsoo all the time, and that fear that Howon resented him had always been lingering in the back of his mind, Howon knows. But now Myungsoo believes him, and from the calmness in his eyes, Howon can tell that faith is complete.

“I’ve spent a lot of time, trying to sort out what I feel versus what the hormones made me feel. I know all feelings are because of hormones, but like...what I would be feeling if the bond weren’t there, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“And I figured that anything really strong I felt was because of the bond, and I started to figure out how to live with that. I made my peace with it.” It feels strange, talking about these sorts of things out loud to anyone but Sungjong. He’s not used to being introspective in quite this way; he usually doesn’t have to be, because Sungjong can see right through him. But it feels right now, and even though Howon can’t bring himself to look at Myungsoo, he can tell that Myungsoo is listening with everything he is.

“And I said something to Sungjong at the bus station about that, and Dongwoo wanted to talk to me about what kinds of things that the bond can’t make you feel. The things I thought were from the bond but really weren’t.”

“Like what?” Myungsoo asks when Howon pauses. His fingers are twitching in his lap, and Howon reaches out to take one of his hands, holding it in his. The feel of Myungsoo’s palm against his, their fingers intertwined, is so familiar now. Natural as a dance move he’s been doing for years.

“Like how I feel about you.” He watches their hands as his thumb bumps over the mountain chain of Myungsoo’s knuckles, not daring to lift his eyes up to Myungsoo’s face. Not yet. “Like if I feel like I’m in love with you, that I really am.”

Myungsoo doesn’t move. He doesn’t go stiff and frozen all over, but he doesn’t move. Howon had expected something a little dramatic—shock of some variety or another. But Myungsoo just lets out a long, long breath.

“You’re in love with me?” he asks finally, and Howon doesn’t hear any kind of emotion in his voice, but it doesn’t sound flat either. Just...normal. He raises his eyes and finds that Myungsoo is staring down at their linked hands, too. His face is very calm.

“Yeah,” Howon says, throat rough. “I think I have been for a while, but I thought it was the bond. Dongwoo told me it couldn’t be, and I realized...I have been for a while.”

There’s another moment of quiet, Kim Jongwan’s voice crooning quietly in the background, and then Myungsoo shifts, releasing Howon’s hand and sending confusion pinging through Howon’s mind before Myungsoo moves to straddle Howon’s legs, sinking down in Howon’s lap so he can look down into his face. He’s grinning.

“I’m in love with you, too,” Myungsoo says, dimples showing, and Howon understands now why Myungsoo wasn’t shocked, because he isn’t shocked himself. He’d known. His conscious mind hadn’t acknowledged it, but a part of him that’s deeper than that has known for weeks now—for what seems like forever—that he loves Myungsoo and that Myungsoo loves him back. Hearing it now doesn’t feel like a shock or even a surprise. It just feels right.

Something good—not joy or happiness, nothing as showy as that, but more vivid than contentment; a rightness that’s nothing at all like the bond-manufactured kind—is spreading through him as he stares back at Myungsoo. And he realizes he’s grinning back.

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.” Myungsoo’s grown more confident in Howon’s affection, has reached the point where he’ll say what he feels or what he wants without too much hesitation. But up till now he always still flushed or his eyes went shy when he did it. But in this moment, he’s not blushing at all, and his eyes are nothing but shining. “It wasn’t like a manhwa or a drama, so I didn’t recognize it. We didn’t...we didn’t do everything in the right order.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say, naive, almost childish, but Howon understands. That’s just Myungsoo. That’s why Howon loves him. “But I am.”

Howon’s hands sneak up to cup the back of Myungsoo’s head, fingers sliding into his hair, and he brings their foreheads together. Myungsoo’s breath is warm on his lips, and his weight is warm in his lap, and this is right. “It’s a good thing we have each other, then,” he says, the same words he’d said Friday—a thousand years ago—in the gym, and then he brings Myungsoo’s lips down on his.

Myungsoo lets out a long sigh against his lips when the kiss is over, neither of them really moving back, lips hovering against each other. Howon thinks Myungsoo will want to stay like that for a while, and while it isn’t Howon’s style, he doesn’t mind. But Myungsoo sits back suddenly, face creasing.

“Dongwoo-hyung told you that right before your audition? About how you were really in love and it wasn’t the bond?”

Howon blinks. “Uh, yeah. That was what his phone call was about. I told you.”

Howon laughs suddenly, understanding. “Yeah.” He’d been frustrated with the timing, too. But maybe...maybe it turned out to be for the best. Maybe he wouldn’t have danced that well, danced like he had Friday at the gym just for Myungsoo, if he hadn’t just had that conversation.

“But you thought you probably wouldn’t ever be in love! And you’d decided to be okay with what the bond made you feel! So how—” Myungsoo breaks off in frustration, then huffs out a breeze that lifts his bangs off his forehead. “How could he do that when you—”

Howon’s laugh rings out again, and he can’t help but lift his head up again to press a kiss to Myungsoo’s lips. His mate is the cutest thing in the whole world. “Yeah, bad timing, right?”

Myungsoo thumps frustrated fists against Howon’s chest. “But how could he do that to you? Make you think about stuff you hadn’t thought about before and—”

Howon’s hands come up to rest on Myungsoo’s waist. “He wasn’t thinking, Myungsoo,” he says, still chuckling. “He was just so freaked out at the idea of me thinking what I felt wasn’t real that he needed to talk to me then. Our friends were worried about us, because they want to make sure we’re happy.”

“But—”

“But it’s okay,” Howon interrupts, hungrily eyeing the little pout on Myungsoo’s lips. Now’s not the time for that. Later. “It worked out okay. I would have thought that I’d need a bunch of time to process it, but when I thought about it, I realized that nothing had really changed. I just had a new label for what I felt.”

“When did you even have time to think about it?” Myungsoo demands. “You went in to audition right away and—”

“I think I worked it out through the dancing.” Howon hadn’t planned to say those words, hadn’t been aware he was thinking them, but there they are, and Myungsoo falls silent, hands lowered to his lap and frustration dropping away. Howon stretches his neck back to glance at the ceiling, trying to figure out a way to put this into words. He’s never talked about how he dances, has always felt that if he could say it in so many words, then it meant that it wasn’t a very good dance. But he’s going to try now.

“It was important to me, to develop the choreo myself,” he says, focusing once again on Myungsoo’s waiting face. “I mean, Dongwoo helped me with, like...editing. But it was all me, right?” Myungsoo nods, and Howon continues. “I didn’t think about why it was important, I just knew it was. I kind of thought it was so I could tell them at the audition, so they’d know I had skills there, too, that maybe it would give me bonus points when they were considering whether to accept me.”

He takes a breath, laying out his thoughts carefully. “But I don’t think it was that. I think it was that I was...working out our relationship. In the dance.”

He can’t tell by Myungsoo’s face whether he understands or not, so he keeps going. “I choreographed it when we were finally getting closer. And until then, I hadn’t been dancing much since we mated. I think when I was working on the choreo, I was working through all the stuff I’d gone through since we mated.”

Myungsoo’s nod is barely perceptible. “I didn’t know you did that.” His nose scrunches briefly, and then he corrects himself. “I mean, I knew you used what you were feeling to...fuel your dancing. But I didn’t know you used your dancing to….” He trails off, not finding the words, but Howon doesn’t need him to.

“I didn’t either. But you were there with me every day when I worked on it, and you really did make me better. And when I showed the whole thing to you on Friday, it felt right dancing it for you in a way it hadn’t before, even though I’d been through it seven thousand times by then.”

“Yeah,” Myungsoo says, and Howon knows he knows exactly what he means.

“And then today when I suddenly had all this dropped in my lap, the dance was there waiting for me.” That sounds sentimental in ways Howon doesn't usually let himself be, but it’s the truth, and this is Myungsoo, and he can say it to him. He has to say it to him. “Everything was waiting there in the dance for me to accept it. I know it doesn’t make any fucking sense, but that’s what happened. It was so much, and then I danced it, and then I could fit it inside me.”

Myungsoo’s eyes aren’t quite shining now, not like they were early, but there’s something glowing in them, like an ember, maybe, something steady and sure. “Sometimes I look through my camera at something I’ve looked at a million times, and I realize I never saw it before. Like I’m learning how to see it. Like I’m seeing it for what it really is.”

Of course Myungsoo understands. His relationship with photography is different than Howon’s with dance, but it’s equally deep, equally a part of who he is and how he connects to the world. “Yeah.”

Myungsoo’s mouth curls up at the corners. “That’s why they wanted you.” Off Howon’s confused look, “That’s why your audition was so good. That’s why they thought you were worth taking on as a trainee, even though you’re mated. They saw it, what you were dancing. They didn’t know what it was, but they had to have seen it. And nobody would have rejected you after that.”

Howon lets out an incredulous laugh. “Myungsoo, you weren’t even there.”

“But I know,” he says stubbornly. “I know that’s what happened.”

More disbelieving laughter. “Myungsoo—“

“They’re going to call you in a day or two. They’re going to ask you to be a trainee. I know it.”

“Myungsoo—”

“I know it.”

He’s so cute when he’s so certain that Howon has to kiss him again, laughing into his lips. This kid. This man he’s in love with, this man he’s mated to. He’s so different than anything Howon’s ever known, so different than anything Howon ever would have thought he’d want.

“So when they call, what are we going to tell them?” Myungsoo asks when they part, his face still held in Howon’s hands, Howon’s thumbs still caressing his cheekbones.

“I guess we have to decide,” Howon says, dropping his hands down. “It’s weird—before we mated, I couldn’t imagine anything that would make me hesitate for even a second to accept a spot as a trainee.”

“Before we mated, I couldn’t imagine having to make any choice about my future but which university Sungyeol and I should go to.”

“It changed everything.”

“Yeah.”

“I think they gave us our answer, though,” Howon says. “That if they offer me a place—”

“When they offer you a place,” Myungsoo interrupts, looking stern.

“If they offer me a place,” Howon emphasizes, smiling at Myungsoo’s displeased expression, “I can delay it for a year. We can graduate, you can apply to universities, I’ll come back and audition again and sign on as a trainee, and we can live here in Seoul while you and Sungyeol study. We both get what we wanted.”

“There’s no guarantee,” Myungsoo argues. “That’ll only work if they have a spot for you. And they might not.”

“They probably will, Myungsoo. They’re a small company, and people drop out all the time.”

“‘Probably’ isn’t ‘definitely,’ though. What if they don’t?”

Howon sighs. “Then I’ll start making the rounds of the other companies.” When Myungsoo just looks at him, Howon shoves a hand through his hair. “Look, this is the best solution we could hope to find. It’s the closest to us both getting things to work out the way we want them to. No, there’s no guarantee of me getting a place, but there’re no guarantees in life anyway. A huge meteor could hit Seoul tomorrow and destroy every entertainment company in the country. Sungyeol could decide he wants to be a monk and not go to university with you.”

“Sungyeol?” Myungsoo starts laughing so hard he almost tumbles right off of Howon’s lap, and Howon holds onto his waist, fondly amused, as Myungsoo flaps his hand around in mirth. “I think the meteor is more likely,” he gasps out.

“The point,” Howon says, still smiling as Myungsoo recovers control, “Is that ‘probably’ has to be good enough this time.”

Myungsoo sobers completely, eyes dropping to his lap. His eyelashes look very dark against the curve of his cheeks. “Would it have been good enough before?” he asks quietly, and Howon feels his chest tighten up.

“No,” he answers, throaty. He’s never going to lie to Myungsoo. “No. But things are different now.”

The twist of Myungsoo’s mouth is dry. “Yeah.”

Howon doesn’t like seeing that kind of cynicism on his face. He’s not going to let it stay there. “Things are different. And I couldn’t have imagined a time when ‘probably’ would be good enough, no, but that’s life, isn’t it? Shit just keeps flying at you and a lot of it you don’t see coming? And sometimes it turns out to be something really good? My life is different and I’m different because of what happened to us, and it sucks that I have to make do with ‘probably,’ but in exchange I get you. And I wouldn’t give you up for anything.”

Myungsoo raises his eyes, ember-glowing again. “Even if you could?”

“Didn’t you hear me when I said you were the best thing that’s ever happened to me? Fuck it, Myungsoo, nobody gets every good thing in the world. Even if they told me I could debut tomorrow with the greatest group ever put together, I wouldn’t trade you. Don’t you fucking know that?”

There’s still a twist to Myungsoo’s lips, but it’s less cynical now. “You’d tell them to shove the offer up their asses and then you’d work so hard you end up debuting with a better group.”

Fuck, Myungsoo does know him so well. Nothing feels better than knowing that. “Right. I do things on my terms. Our terms. And I’m am going to be an idol and I’m going to make sure you get what you want. Both. I’m not settling for less than that. If I have to wait longer to do one or the other, I’ll live with that.”

Myungsoo shakes his head, still stubborn. “But don’t you worry that you’re giving up your chance? Doesn’t it hurt to think of saying no?”

“Of course it fucking hurts.” It does. Every time he thinks of it, being offered what he wants and turning to down—or delaying it for a while or whatever—it hurts so bad he wants to cry. But the thought of making Myungsoo move here right away, far away from his family and friends, months of walking alone through some unfamiliar high school, shoulders slumped—that hurts even more. He can’t do that to Myungsoo. No matter how much the other choice hurts. “But it’s not my only chance. I won’t let it be. I will visit every company in the city until one of them breaks down and takes me and then I’ll be so fantastic that they’ll have to let me debut. And, fuck, if all else fails, I’ll convince Sunggyu-hyung to start our own company with me. We’ll do his moody rock music and my hip hop and do them both better than anyone else.”

Myungsoo raises his wistful eyes back to Howon’s. “But it would break you. And I’d hate myself for making you give it up.”

“I’d hate myself for making you give up your plans, too. This is the best shot we have. We have to take it.”

“I know,” Myungsoo says quietly.

“And I’m not going to let anything stop me. I’ll be an idol. Don’t you believe in me?”

Myungsoo rolls his eyes. “Duh.” But the way he looks at Howon makes it clear: Myungsoo does believe in him, with a kind of faith that makes Howon feel like he can take on the whole world.

“Right, so it’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.” The thought of giving up this chance still does make him sick. But the thing is, the words of assurance he’s speaking to Myungsoo...he’s starting to believe them. Starting to believe that he really can make the world bend to the way he wants it to be through sheer force of will, starting to believe that he’ll be able to work so fucking hard that there’s no way he won’t get what he wants. It makes no sense, but somehow he feels more confident now that he’ll get it than he did before the mating. Back then, nothing could have distracted him from his dream, nothing could come anywhere close to it in importance. But now there’s Myungsoo, and somehow Howon has made room in his life for something every bit as important, and yet even with other priorities, other concerns, other things he wants so badly he’s sure it’s what’s keeping his heart beating, Howon still feels more certain than he ever has. Maybe it’s perspective, or growing up, or something about Myungsoo. Howon doesn’t know. But that certainty is filling him up, steeling his will and kindling his desire to work, and he won’t accept anything less than he and Myungsoo, together, and both happy.

“We’ll be okay,” he repeats, seeing that faith glowing in Myungsoo’s eyes. And he believes it.